Whisper Me This(78)

“But I was shaken, Maisey. I remembered your imaginary friend, then, and her reaction to that. I thought probably she’d had to give a child up for adoption. Curiosity got me, like it got you. I googled, never thinking I would actually find results. But I found Marley. And then I got to thinking. Leah would never revisit a decision she’d made, but surely things were different. She was going to die. She should know her daughter, or at least her daughter should have the chance to know her. I tried to tell her that, but she still wouldn’t listen. I tried to tell her she should tell you. We had raging battles for the first time in our marriage. I fought her on this. In the end, I wrote to Marley. She wrote back directly to your mother. The letter wasn’t . . . helpful.”

“I’ve met her. I can imagine.”

“Leah went from angry to paranoid. Maybe it was that thing in her brain, I don’t know. ‘You don’t know what you’ve done,’ she said.

“‘Tell me, then,’ I begged her. ‘What’s so terrible about reaching out to your children before you die?’ But she refused to talk about it. She bought that gun. She got obsessive about locking doors, checking them five times before she’d go to bed, and then getting up in the middle of the night to check again.

“Something like a wrong-number phone call would send her off on a reverse number search. I didn’t know what to do with her. She would tell me only that it was best if I didn’t know. Best if you didn’t know. And definitely best if she never, ever talked to Marley.”

He falls quiet. I let him swivel the chair away from me, and he drops his head into his hands, both elbows resting on the desk. “And now I feel guilty, like I’ve betrayed her trust. Do you think she’s haunting us, Maisey, burning holes in my back with ghostly eyes right this minute?”

I get up and stand behind him, draping my arms around his neck and pressing my cheek against the top of his head. “I think she was the luckiest woman in the world to find you and that she knew that. I think she’s resting quietly in her grave. I think you and I are both going to have a hell of a time figuring out how to make our own decisions.”

He sighs, deeply. “You think?”

“I know.”

“God, I am so tired. I think I’m going back to bed.”

“You need some dinner first.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Me, either,” I tell him. “But that’s one of those decisions we’re going to have to start making. Food. Minimum three times a day. All right?”

“If you say so.”

We both laugh at that, such a tiny little moment of relief. He leans on me when he stands. I put my arm around his waist, and we walk together to the kitchen, where we both turn up our noses at casseroles and go for sugar cereal and milk, a small, shared rebellion.

I think we’ve left the topic of Marley behind, but when Dad sets his bowl in the sink he turns to me, serious, focused. “Leave Marley alone. It’s best. We opened the door to her, and she slammed it shut. We should respect that.”

“We should. Do you need a hand back to your room?”

“There are perfectly good walls to lean on. I’ll manage. Where’s Elle?”

“Spending the night with Greg’s mom. She’s not particularly happy about it.”

“She’ll live.” He drops a kiss on the top of my head and shuffles off down the hallway.

When he’s out of sight, I pick up my cereal bowl in both hands and drain the sugary milk, making slurping noises and daring my mother’s ghost to come after me.

What I should do and what I will do are two different chickens, and I’m pretty sure Dad knows it.





Leah’s Journal

Things got worse between me and Boots after the babies came home.

It was easy to make excuses for him. Both of us were exhausted. It took two people working around the clock to manage the feeding and diapering and crying, not to mention the house and food and all those things.

My mother was in a bout of major depression. She showed up twice in those first weeks, uncombed, gaunt, moving with exaggerated slowness. Holding her grandbabies did nothing to light a fire in her. She looked at them, dead-eyed, and began to silently weep.

“I’ve not done right by you, Leah,” she whispered. “Not been a good mother.”

“So be one now,” I told her. I didn’t have the energy to take care of her. I needed her to take care of me, just this once . . .

I see now that she was clinically depressed. I’m sure she needed medications and counseling. My father was a late-stage alcoholic by then, never sober. He didn’t even come to see the little ones. I didn’t go to him.

My mother-in-law came daily to snuggle babies, create a little order out of chaos, even restock the refrigerator. But she had her waitress job to manage, and she wasn’t young anymore. Night shifts were out of the question. And night shifts were the hardest of all.

It was 1:03 a.m. when Boots snapped the first time. The red digital numbers of the bedside clock are imprinted in my brain.

Both Maisey and Marley were crying. I don’t know why. I’d fed them, changed them, rocked them. And finally, exhausted beyond caring, I put them into the crib and dropped into a milk-sodden heap on the bed.

Boots sat up when I lay down. If I’d been awake enough to care, I would have recognized that he was practically blaring outrage.